Dean Herbert Pardes began the
morning program with a combined state of the school and state of
the American medical system address, warning that while P&S
is thriving despite the unfavorable climate for academic medicine,
the state of American medicine is at an all time low, jeopardizing
health care delivery in the nation. "If one can describe various
eras in the history of humankind," he said, "this might well be
called the Managed Care Era." Dr. Pardes bemoaned that "the notions
of wonderful consistency, human interaction, and quality concern
were left somewhere on the way to the managed care juggernaut."

Named by President Clinton to sit on a new presidential commission
on managed care, the dean condemned what he called "conveyor belt
medicine" and said he hoped to work with the commission "to figure
out a way to partner between the patients and the physicians" to
ensure the delivery of proper medical care within reasonable
financial constraints.

Contrary to his dour national prognosis, however, Dr. Pardes was
enthusiastic about the vitality of P&S, in no small part thanks
to its current endowment of $550 million and 70 endowed
professorships. In recent years, he reported, P&S has grown by
more than 1 million square feet of new or renovated space. Citing
the recent splendid accreditation review of the medical school, he
outlined two goals for the future: to build the endowment to $1
billion and to have no fewer than 100 endowed chairs by the next
accreditation review in 2003.

"So what we're doing to face and meet the challenge of this era
of managed care," he concluded, "is working with industry, fund
raising, clinical trials, developing and exploiting the inventions
of our scientists to develop additional streams of revenue to keep
P&S strong."

Other faculty speakers representing various perspectives on
P&S were Andrew G. Frantz'55, professor of medicine and
chairman of the admissions committee; Ronald E. Drusin'66,
professor of clinical medicine and associate dean for curricular
affairs; Dr. Herbert Chase, associate professor of clinical
medicine and director for the new interdisciplinary survey course,
Science Basic to the Practice of Medicine; and Glenda Garvey'69,
professor of clinical medicine, acting chief of infectious diseases,
and course director for the third-year medicine clerkship.

Francine Wiest'98, Andrew R. Watson'98, and Davinder J. Singh'96
gave visiting alumni a picture of what life is like for today's
medical students.